Sleep in the Natural Environment: A Pilot Study.

Area of Science:

• Digital Health and Sleep Science
• Wearable Technology and Physiological Monitoring

Background:

• Traditional sleep studies are costly and inconvenient, limiting large-scale research.
• Commercial digital devices offer a potential alternative for monitoring sleep quality using physiological data.
• The accuracy and inter-device correlation of these consumer sleep trackers remain largely unvalidated in research settings.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate the correlation between sleep metrics from various consumer wearable devices and self-reported sleep metrics (SRSMs).
• To examine the relationship between device-derived sleep data and established cognitive and psychological measures.
• To assess the performance of Fitbit Surge, Withings Aura, Hexoskin, and Oura Ring in a research context.

Main Methods:

• A pilot study involving 21 participants.
• Collected sleep data from Fitbit Surge, Withings Aura, Hexoskin, and Oura Ring.
• Compared device outputs with self-reported sleep metrics (SRSMs), n-back test, and Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index (PSQI) using univariate linear regressions.

Main Results:

• Low but significant correlations (P < 0.05) were observed between sleep metrics from different devices.
• Withings Aura's sleep latency showed significant associations with cognitive scores at afternoon and evening timepoints (P = 0.016, P = 0.013).
• Oura Ring's total sleep duration and efficiency correlated significantly with PSQI scores (P = 0.004, P = 0.033); no significant associations were found for SRSMs.

Conclusions:

• Consumer sleep trackers exhibit limited inter-device agreement for sleep metrics.
• Specific metrics from devices like Withings Aura and Oura Ring show potential for correlating with cognitive function and sleep quality perception.
• Further research is needed to validate these sensor-based sleep metrics for broader application in clinical and research settings.